Imagination is one of the key drivers to evolution, yet is underrepresented in today’s business models. I suggest that there are four areas that will benefit from the potential of imagination: aggregate group images, imagination in problem solving, communities of passion and employee engagement.

Problem

Imagination is a central driver of evolution in humans and organisations, where there is a constant need to adapt to the rapidly changing and complex external environment. It is effective at calling upon a broad use of participant knowledge, and is fundamental in gaining access to intuition, creativity and a more complete assessment of the business and its environment. Imagination therefore is the key to innovative businesses, yet little is yet known about the processes and underlying mechanisms that best engage it.

Solution

There is boundless literature outlining the potential of the use of imagination in organisations; however the key question is how to successfully incorporate it into a practical application. In this hack I recommend four useful uses of imagination; creating an aggregated view of the future, problem solving, as a key component in developing communities of passion, and in achieving better buy-in and engagement from employees.

Creating aggregate images– a combination of a group of individual mental images to create a more diverse and superior view of the future. Most innovations require a collaborative creative effort and under the right conditions, teams make better decisions, develop better products and services and create a more energised workforce compared with employees working.

Use of imagination in problem solving – ensuring that imagination takes a more pivotal role in the decision making role to ensure creativity and innovation. Imagination helps by focusing on solutions not on the problem, and visualisation enlighten and hones the dynamics of a projected scenario, mental imagery procedures enable decision maker’s to envision other future environmental conditions.

Communities of passion – communities of people that are passionate about a topic, sharing visions and excitement for a product, problem or future. These communities encourage the sharing of experiences and knowledge in free-flowing, creative ways that encourage new approaches to problems and to challenge mental models.

Employee engagement – a proactive approach to business engages and fully uses employee imagination. People are more engaged and creative when they are motivated primarily by the interest, enjoyment, satisfaction and challenge of the work itself.

Practical Impact

Vivid and broad mental models are developed by teams, envisioning the future and potential solutions or outcomes

Creative problems solving, where employees are trained constantly challenge and rebuild mental models, and imagining new ways to understand the world that do not logically follow from past beliefs

Organisations that nurture passion by creating a work environment that downplays the obstacles and fosters stimulants to creativity

Using imagination to facilitate engagement and encourage employees.

First Steps

Top management need to show commitment to the importance of imagination in their organisations

Education of employees to re-establish imagination into the organisation

Creating the foundations for communities or groups of people to gather to share passion and ideas

Enjoyed reading your hack. Agree that communities of passion should be one of the key ambitions in most companies actually, local, national or international.

Did you ever try music to build bridges across departments or between different companies ?
Get people to perform as a choir. A great metaphor for leadership and cooperation. It is fun - innovative ideas thrive when people have been allowed/forced to sing together.